Tonight’s Finales:FX: Taboo at 10pHistory: The Curse of Oak Island: Digging Deeper at 8p, The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down at 10pTLC: Tattoo Girls at 10p

IN THE NEWS

Time Warner shares hit a 52-week high yesterday, after FCC chairman Ajit Pai told the Wall Street Journal it was his understanding that TW’s $85 billion sale to AT&T “won’t be presented to the commission.” This comes after Time Warner’s sale of its Atlanta TV station WPCH to Meredith for $70 million last week, helping ensure there won’t be a need for FCC review of the AT&T transaction.

On a (very) related note, AT&T Entertainment CEO John Stankey made it clear at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday that creating its own content is a key company goal. “We just cannot envision a future where AT&T is relevant if we don’t directly participate in some of the water flowing through our pipes,” said Stankey.

Season 2 of psychological thriller Fortitude, homeless after Pivot was shut down, has been picked up by Amazon Studios and is slated to premiere on Prime Video later this year. Dennis Quaid joined the ensemble cast for its sophomore run as a fisherman desperate to cure his terminally ill wife.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif weighed in on the decision of the Best Foreign Language Oscar winners for The Salesman to boycott the show. “Proud of cast & crew of The Salesman for Oscar & stance against #MuslimBan,” he tweeted the morning after a representative for the movie read a statement on behalf of director Asghar Farhadi onstage that said in part, “Dividing the world into the us and our enemies categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war.”

On a lighter note, Steve Harvey – who famously named the wrong winner at the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant, and was jokingly blamed on Oscar night by host Jimmy Kimmel after a baffled Warren Beatty handed Faye Dunaway the envelope for Best Picture and she named La La Land the winner instead of Moonlight – also took to Twitter on Monday. “Call me Warren Beatty,” Harvey tweeted. “I can help you get through this! #Oscars.”

Oscars accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers took the blame for Beatty and Dunaway being given the wrong envelope on Sunday. “We made a human error,” Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman and senior partner of PwCtold USA Today. “Our partner on the left side of the stage, Brian Cullinan, he handed the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty. And then the second we realized that we notified the appropriate parties and corrected the mistake.” But not soon enough. “It was a little chaotic and just took time to get out onstage and let people know that the mistake was made. And unfortunately that took enough time to get through two and a half acceptance speeches.”

At least one person was happy about the goof. “Finally, something happens at one of these dumb awards shows,” said conservative news host Tucker Carlson on Fox & Friends the morning after the Trump-joke-filled ceremony. “It couldn’t happen to better people.”

Do you think the stunning snafu on the Oscars, as bad as it must have been for La La Land, made for good TV? Let us know in the new Cynopsis poll: http://cynopsis.com/poll/.

Following last week’s escalating “fake news” attacks on the media from Trump, Former President George W. Bush appeared on NBC’s Today on Monday offering a different point of view. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account,” said Bush. “Power can be very addictive, it can be corrosive.” As for the increase in news coverage since his days in office, Bush joked to Matt Lauer, “When I was president, you mattered a lot more because there were three of you.”

Tegna Media announced a record $529.1 million in revenue for 4Q16, up 14.5% versus 4Q15. The growth was helped by an $80.2 million increase in political advertising and a $25.5 million boost in retrans revenues.

Hearst Television, owner of 33 stations across 39 states, starting advising Dish Network customers that there could be a blackout if the companies can’t reach a renew their deal by March 1. “Only Hearst Television Inc. can force a blackout of its channels,” responded Dish, adding it is “actively working to reach a deal before the contract expires.”

Syfy canceled futuristic drama Incorporated after one season. The show, centered on a man’s attempts to throw a wrench in the works of a powerful company, came from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Pearl Street Films, CBS Television Studios and Universal Cable Productions.

A new episode of CBS’s Training Day airing Thursday will include a dedication to series star Bill Paxton, who died February 25 at age 61 from complications from surgery. Production on the midseason drama’s 13 episodes wrapped in December.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

APRIL 12 / CYNOPSIS WORLD ESPORTS SUMMIT

Everything you need to know to join the eSports movement and succeed. Tickets are flying off the shelves. Register before 3/22 to save on the East Coast’s premiere eSports Summit!

Showtime ordered a new season of The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth. The documentary series will focus on the first 100 days in office of President Trump. “Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, and Mark McKinnon are some of the most respected and compelling voices in politics, and given the breathtaking pace of developments in the Trump presidency, we are pleased to be able get them back on the air with new episodes, said David Nevins, president and CEO, Showtime Networks.” Series returns Sunday, March 19 at 8p.

Spanish-language cable entertainment net Universo launched production on season 2 of scripted series El Vato. The dramedy from Universo and Endemol Shine Latino, produced by Boomdog, is inspired by the life of music star El Dasa.

RETURNING SERIES

Splash and Bubbles returns to PBS Kids on Monday, March 13. Series aimed at ages 4-7 teaches kids about marine biology and ocean science concepts.

Season 8 of Archer, moving from FX to FXX, premieres Wednesday, April 5 at 10p, as Archer tries to find out who killed his partner – but accidentally ends up in bed with a notorious LA crime boss.

CASTING

Entourage alum Jeremy Piven will play the lead in CBS’s Wisdom of the Crowd. Drama pilot is based on an Israeli format about a tech innovator who creates a crowd-sourcing hub to solve his daughter’s murder.

Rachel Lefevre (Under the Dome) landed the female lead in ABC drama pilot Doomsday, about a secret 9/11 government think tank reconvened to prevent disaster.

J.K. Simmons will guest on SpongeBob SquarePants Saturday, March 4 at 10a on Nickelodeon. The Oscar winner for Whiplash will voice Maestro Mackerel, the impatient conductor of the Bikini Bottom Philharmonic.

CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery, originally slated to premiere in May, is looking at a late summer/early fall start date, CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves told investors on Monday. “It’s important to get it right, and Star Trek is the family jewels,” said Moonves. “We’re not going to rush it.”

Comcast and Google are partnering to launch the YouTube app on Xfinity X1 across the country later this year. X1 customers will be able to browse and access the entire YouTube catalog of videos, along with the live, on demand and web programming included with their Xfinity TV subscription – without using a smart device like Roku.

Univision’s Fusion Media Group has launched a web site covering e-sports, Compete, manned by editors of sports website Deadspin and gaming-focused Kotaku. Gillette will be the exclusive advertiser for the first 6 months; revenue strategy includes branded content.

Rosemary’s Baby hits FilmStruck’s Criterion Collection tomorrow, March 1. In addition to the 1968 psychological horror film, content includes a 2012 documentary featuring interviews with Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow and Robert Evans, an interview with author Ira Levin in a 1997 radio broadcast and a doc about the life and work of the film’s composer, Krzysztof Komeda.

A sneak peek of the reimagined Ben 10 animated series is available on the Cartoon Network app, ahead of the show’s linear launch.

ADVERTISING & BRANDS

The election may be over, but cable news is still enjoying a Trump bump. According to Standard Media Index, ad spend on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC was up 31 percent in January versus the year prior. MSNBC rose 49.2 percent, Fox News gained 34.2 percent and CNN had a 19.9 percent lift. The average cost of ads spiked, to the tune of about 50 percent for the nets.

Walmart took a big swing with branded storytelling in three Oscars ads, enlisting directors Antoine Fuqua (Southpaw), Seth Rogan and Evan Golderg (Superbad) and Marc Forster (Monsters Ball) to each create a 60-second spot featuring six Walmart products. In fact, branded content is the name of the game for an increasing number of networks and brands. At today’s Cynopsis webinar, Winning Strategies for Branded Content, 6 experts with proven track records offer case studies and insights on what it takes to create the kinds of experiences that appeal to audiences and brands. Register here – but hurry!

A new campaign from Ogilvy, “Move On to Moto,” promotes Moto Mods, which transform the Moto Z phone into a new device (super-zoom camera, boombox, projector and more). The humorous spots for social and digital promote the idea of re-evaluating your relationship status with your phone.

Ad tech company BrightLine and Nielsen marketing software division Marketing Cloud are working together with the goal of enabling advertisers to make TV ads shown on OTT apps more targeted and interactive, reports the Wall Street Journal. Brightline collects data at the device level to determine how TV ads perform on particular apps and devices; its partnership with Nielsen will add information about specific audience characteristics.

MEC North America CEO Marla Kaplowitz has been elected president of ad trade group The 4As. Kaplowitz succeeds Nancy Hill, who announced last year her intention to step down after 8 years. The 10-person selection committee, whose decision was unanimous, was headed by Horizon CEO Bill Koenigsberg.

Azteca America is taking it to the streets for the second year this Upfronts, with a five-city Upfront event that starts in NYC on Wednesday, April 5. From there, the executive team will travel to Miami, Chicago, LA and Dallas. Each market stop will include two days of one-on-one meetings with agencies and clients.

GOING GLOBAL

Armoza Formats reality show Curvy Supermodel has been commissioned in Brazil by SBT. The modeling competition has also been licensed in Spain, France, Poland and the Netherlands, and is headed for season 2 in Germany.

UK’s Drive announced pre-sales for series Supernatural Nazis,raising co-financing with pre-sales to Channel 5 in the UK, RMC Decouverte in France and Discovery Communications in Poland, Japan and Latin America.The series, produced by Australian indie Wildbear Entertainment for American Heroes Channel in the U.S., explores the story of Hitler and the Nazi Party’s plans to win World War II by using an array of supernatural and occult super powers.

Discovery Communications has taken a 20% stake in UK’s Play Sports Group, as well as a seat on the board. In January, Play Sports Group reached over 20 million cycling fans with content posted across its YouTube channel and social media profiles.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

2017 Upfront & NewFronts Schedule of Events

Visit our website regularly for the most up to date info on the who, what, when and where of this year’s Upfront season. Cynopsis will have everything you need to know about new programming, fresh research and surprising advertiser opportunities.

Sunday’s 89th Academy Awards averaged 32.9 million viewers and 9.1 among A18-49, according to Nielsen, down 4% in viewers and 13% among A18-49 versus last year and the smallest in 9 years, but outperforming its broadcast competition on CBS, NBC and Fox by 177% in total viewers and 270% in the demo. The net’s red carpet pre-show drew an average 20.9 million viewers.

HGTV’s Fixer Upper placed as a top 5 cable show on February 21, nabbing the #4 spot for all viewers A25-54 and the #2 among all W25-54. The episode, which attracted 4.3 million total viewers, also helped propel HGTV to the #1 spot in primetime among ad-supported cable for upscale viewers A25-54 and W25-54.

USA’s Chrisley Knows Best returned for season 5 on February 21 with its highest premiere ever among P2+ viewers, with 2.9 million in Live+3 numbers, up 30% from the season 4 launch. Among A25-54 the show grew 21%, to 1.53 million.

Bates Motel (A%E) 165, 129, 36Source: Nielsen. Uniques and interactions are a measure of total relevant U.S. social media activity grossed across Facebook and Twitter from three hours before through three hours after broadcast, local time. Includes primetime and late fringe programming with metrics available across social platforms on Broadcast and National Cable and excludes sports events. For multicast programs, networks are listed alphabetically and metrics reflect the highest volume of interactions across all airing networks, denoted with an asterisk

SHAREABLE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top U.S. Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of February 20, 2017Program, Date, Total Actions (000), Total Content, Actions per Post (000), Fans/Followers (000)The Ellen DeGeneres Show (Warner Bros./synd.) 8911, 92, 97, 133197

The Walking Dead (AMC) 3060, 83, 37, 48068

E! News (E!) 2671, 701, 4, 28289

Today Show (NBC) 2330, 488, 5, 11309

Shadowhunters (Freeform) 1748, 211, 8, 3141

This Is Us (NBC) 1550, 198, 8, 2856

Good Morning America (ABC) 1269, 603, 2, 11517

TMZ (Warner Bros./synd) 1132, 888, 1, 12778

The Tonight Show (NBC) 1077, 164, 7, 19136

The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC) 980, 48, 20, 8755Source: Shareablee Inc. The total actions metric includes the total volume of post-level likes, shares, favorites, retweets and comments. Total content includes all posts, tweets and media posted by each TV property across all platforms. Actions per post metric notes the average e number of actions garnered by each TV property. Total fans/followers includes Facebook and Twitter and Instagram followers

Top 11 Live+7 Playback Rankers by actual gain for the week of February 6, 2017Live+SD/Live+7/+7 Actual GainThis Is Us (NBC) 2.6/5.0/2.4

The Big Bang Theory (CBS) 3.0/4.8/1.8

Modern Family (ABC) 2.3/3/9/1.6

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) 2.1/3.5/1.4

How to Get Away With Murder (ABC) 1.3/2.6/1.3

Scandal (ABC) 1.6/2.1/1.2

Law & Order: SVU (NBC) 1.6/2.8/1.2

Timeless (NBC) .6/1.6/1.0

Blacklist (NBC) .9/1.9/1.0

Chicago PD (NBC) 1.3/2.3/1.0

Chicago Fire (NBC) 1.5/2.5/1.0Based on the difference between Nielsen’s first-reported Live + Same Day and the final Live + 7 Day ratings (for regular, original programs only).

CNN 1298/NAN* 760Source: Turner Research from The Nielsen Company data. All ratings based on Total US Television Universe of 116,400,000 homes. * + Network broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24 hour day. Notes: Data based on most currently available Nielsen Data stream; Preliminary: Live+7. Primetime is Mon-Sat 8p-11p and Sun 7p-11p. Total day is Mon-Sun 6a-6a for household and demographic performances.

Top Ten Basic Cable Network Live+7 Performance among A18-49 for the week of February 6, 2017Primetime (000), Total Prog. Day (000)AMC 1109/ADSM* 571

USA 815/NICK 393

TBSC 691/NAN* 383

DISC 667/AMC 337

FX 642/ESPN 332

ADSM 586/USA 329

ESPN 565/TBSC 309

HGTV 557/HGTV 302

TNT 554/ID 291

BRAV 550/TNT 286Source: Turner Research from The Nielsen Company data. All ratings based on Total US Television Universe 116,400,000 homes. * + Network broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24 hour day. Notes: Data based on most currently available Nielsen Data stream; Preliminary: Live+7. Primetime is Mon-Sat 8p-11p and Sun 7p-11p. Total day is Mon-Sun 6a-6a for household and demographic performance.

WWE Entertainment (USA) 52Source: Turner Research from The Nielsen Company data. All ratings based on Total US Television Universe 116,400,000 homes. * + Network broadcasts less than 51% of minutes in a 24 hour day. Notes: Data based on most currently available Nielsen Data stream; Preliminary: Live+7. Primetime is Mon-Sat 8p-11p and Sun 7p-11p. Total day is Mon-Sun 6a-6a for household and demographic performance.

Live + Same Day Household Ratings: Friday, February 24, 2017 based on time period averages.

Fox News Executive Vice President of Advertising Sales Paul Rittenberg is stepping down, effective April 28. “It has been one of my greatest honors to help build the Fox News brand from the ground up,” said Rittenberg. “I am so proud of what were able to accomplish and am grateful for the opportunity to work with such a talented team.” Rittenberg, who joined Fox News in 1996, was one of the network’s first employees.

Vanessa Pombo was promoted to the newly-created position of Vice President of Production Management and Business News, Telemundo Network. Pombo will manage domestic and international broadcast news operations.

Crown Media Family Networks appointed Jane Gross as Creative Director of On-Air Promotion. Gross joins Crown Media from Pivot, where she served as Creative Director of Creative Services.

America’s Public Television Stations announced the election of its new board leaders and members: Ronnie Agnew, Executive Director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, has been elected Chairman; Roy Clem, Executive Director of Alabama Public Television, has been elected as the Professional Vice Chair; and Carol Kellermann, Lay Trustee, Thirteen/WNET in New York, has been elected as Lay Vice Chair.

Jennifer Solari has been named Senior Vice President, Media and Talent at Sony Pictures Television. Most recently, Solari was Vice President, Program Publicity and Communications at MTV.

Mallory Thiel has joined Bungalow Media & Entertainment as Director of Development. Previously, Thiel consulted as Director of Development at Bray Entertainment, and served as Manager of Development and Current Production at Oxygen.

Today’s Trivia Question: Which female sitcom character was the first to keep her job after getting married and becoming a mother (to twins)? (Email trivia@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: A limit of four correct answers from each time zone will be selected.).

Game Show Anagram: Wealthy Men Wedge (Email trivia@cynopsis.com; first three respondents with the correct answer who aren’t in trivia – will be posted along with the answer on www.Cynopsis.com.)

MANAGER, TOYS/Nickelodeon/NYC: Mng all licensing activities for assigned product categories. role directly supports team of three as well as handles projects/assignment for the overall Preschool group. 4-6 yrs exp licensing or other related field. Full info/apply HERE (3/4)